Fun With Multimedia #2 – Ratatouille and the Eucharist

Ratatouille tells the story of Rémy, a rat who lives in the attic of a French country home with his brother and his father as part of a rat colony. Inspired by France’s recently deceased top chef, Auguste Gusteau, Rémy does his best to live the life of a gourmet. Not appreciating his talents, his clan puts him to work sniffing for rat poison in their food.

Eventually Rémy is separated from the colony and makes it to Gusteau’s old restaurant in Paris (now run by former sous-chef Skinner—a Judas-like figure). Rémy’s talents are inadvertently discovered by Alfredo Linguini—a young man with no culinary talent—who has recently arrived at Gusteau’s with a letter of introduction from his recently deceased mother, and is hired to do janitorial duties.

Rémy discovers that he can manipulate Linguini’s movements like a marionette by pulling on his hair while hidden under Linguini’s toque blanche (chef’s hat). Eventually, the kitchen’s sole female cook, Colette, is initiated into the secret and the unlikely threesome begin an alliance to bring Gusteau’s back to the top of the Parisian culinary scene.

The plot turns with the revelation of Skinner’s ambition to exploit Gusteau’s image to mass-market prepared frozen foods. Skinner also discovers that Linguini is the biological son of Gusteau and heir to the restaurant. Eventually Rémy discovers Gusteau’s will and Linguini’s identity. With ownership of the restaurant, Linguini fires Skinner and becomes a rising star in the culinary world.

Things come to a head the night of a planned review by food critic Anton Ego, whose contemptuous earlier review of Gusteau’s cooking reduced his five-star restaurant to four stars and eventually led to Gusteau’s untimely death (which ended up dropping his restaurant’s rating down to three stars). Reconciled after a brief falling out, Rémy decides to prepare ratatouille, a traditional peasant dish that would not usually be considered haute cuisine

Discussion

This scene, marking the climax of the film, is a wonderful illustration of the manner in which the Eucharist functions sacramentally as anamnesis, mediating the real presence of Jesus in a way that collapses boundaries between past, present, and future, leaving us transformed to become friends of “the new”—the kingdom of resurrection life that God is bringing into the world.

In the film, Rémy, is the true “chef” (French for “head” or “chief”), but his culinary presence is mediated through Linguini and Colette. Bracketing out the question of Collette’s gender (discussion for another day), how might this scene illuminate the role of the priest and/or deacon in the Divine Liturgy/ Mass.

Patrick McCormick writes, “One of the characteristics of being fully human is that, unlike lions or wolves, we do not simply eat—we dine.”<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> One of the things that makes cuisine different from mere biological replenishment is the artistic presence of the chef mediated by the food. How might this touch upon the question of “the real presence” of Jesus in the Eucharist?

The Eucharist is the covenantal anamnesis (memorial) of Jesus (1 Cor. 11:24,25). Anamnesis has been defined as

a ceremonial re-presentation of a salutary event of the past, in order that the event may lay hold of the situation of the celebrant. [It] presupposes that although the event has and retains its historical uniqueness, it is at the same time present, that is, remains in force as an accomplished fact. It also presupposes that man is able to actualize the effectual presence of this event in his own time in a manner superior to a mere subjective recollection.<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[2]

In the film, the ratatouille dish prepared by Rémy transports Anton Ego to a foundational/ formal event in the past that has transformative effects in the present. This sets him on a path of redemption for the future as he becomes a genuine “friend” of the “new.” How might this illuminate the words of the St. Paul, telling us that “as often as [we] eat this bread and drink the cup, [we] proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Cor. 11:26).

As with the French dish ratatouille, bread and wine are not opulent foods, but the ordinary staples of peasants. Also, as Anton Ego observes in his monologue, Rémy, like Jesus comes from utterly “humble origins.” How might the Eucharistic meal itself proclaim the hidden glory of the cross?

Like Anton Ego, Skinner partakes of Rémy’s dish. How does his duplicity and disingenuous sharing in the meal illustrate the dangers inherent in taking the Eucharist in a careless or unworthy manner? (Cf. 1 Cor. 11:27-34).

Notes

<!–[if !supportFootnotes]–>[1]<!–[endif]–> “How Could We Break the Lord’s Bread in a Foreign Land? The Eucharist in “Diet America” Horizons 25(1) (1998): 54.

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10 Responses

That secene where Ego tastes the Ratatoullie, and immediately goes back to being a small boy in his mother’s kitchen, is as good a scene you’ll see anywhere. It portrays transformation, even ‘transfiguration’ absolutely brilliantly. Of course as a lover of food, especially traditional peasant food, I get that scene. And I find it more meaningful that God chose to unite with us through a meal than I can manage to convey in words.

I am a big fan of Alton Brown of “Good Eats” and “Iron Chef America” fame on the Food Network (not least because he’s a Georgia Bulldog like me). A few months back Guideposts (how often does THAT publication come up around here???) ran an article by Alton discussing the journeys he took in the making of his food travelogue, “Feasting On Asphalt.” In the article was this bit of theology from the Spiky Haired One (sorry, I don’t know how to do block quotes if that is possible in this comments section):

I told you this has also been a spiritual journey for me. I’m always talking about the physics of cooking, but I’m also into the metaphysics of it. A good meal should offer both physical and spiritual nourishment. That’s why I believe the Last Supper is at the heart of Christianity, perhaps its central moment. When Christ broke bread with his disciples and reminded them to do it in remembrance of him, he was showing them the way to both earthly and heavenly sustenance. The simplest moment can be the most profound. Christ unites with his disciples through food that is both sacred and real.

In the end, all journeys are spiritual. So go off the main road. Be givers of hospitality and gracious takers of it too. Accept the serendipitous moments of life because, when all is said and done, you may find out that they were not serendipitous at all. And know that faith is as real as bread broken among friends. What you believe will take you far on your journey. If you search carefully, you will find good food all along the way.

This is a wonderfully creative and fun set of illustrations and exercises. Well done!

I do think that Rahner’s definition of anamnesis is needlessly confusing. Speaking of the eucharist in this sort of trans-temporal language as “re-presenting” or making an historical event present seems unnecessary and bizarre. The past doesn’t become present. It remains in the past (and I realize that Rahner acknowledges this). When we have communion with Jesus, we don’t make the event of the cross somehow a present event; rather, we have communion in the present with the resurrected, ascended Christ who is with us in the present at the right hand of the Father. And in that communion with the Jesus who is here now, we receive all the redemptive benefits of what Jesus accomplished in the victory of his death. (Robert Taft makes this point in an essay that I’ll track down and post if I can find it later). I know that the “past becoming present” language as a description of anamnesis is very popular in recent work on eucharistic theology, but I’ve never understood why so many have found it necessary or helpful to speak in that way. I find it to be neither. Why not simply say that we have communion with the resurrected Christ and thus become sharers in the victory of the cross? Surely in the eucharist we are connected in a vital way to that past history as we become participants in its downstream effects in history. But that is different than saying that the past *becomes* present.

Good questions for Fr. Pahls, but I don’t agree that the language is unnecessarily confusing. Furthermore, I think our baptism also makes present to us the cross and resurrection a la Romans 6. If the Sacraments don’t deliver the historical acts to us here and now, then the power is founded in the strength of our imagination and not on God’s promise to place us into those historical realities through the means He appoints. I don’t deny your point about communing with Christ at present, but I certainly don’t share the pessimism about such language that you do, rather I find it very helpful and speaks to important Christian truths.

My point is certainly not to deny that God works through the sacraments to convey the benefits of the cross and resurrection to us! I affirm that gladly and whole-heartedly. Rather, my point is about the way to articulate how that happens. Romans 6 doesn’t say that the past is made present to us; rather, it says that we are baptized into the person of Christ, and therefore we come to share in what he accomplished in his death and resurrection. When I was baptized, I didn’t have a flashback to 2000 years ago. I didn’t exist then. Nor did the cross somehow show up at the place where I was baptized. Rather, in baptism, I was united to the resurrected Christ. It is because I am united in the present with the resurrected person of Jesus that I become a recipient of the redemption that he accomplished 2000 years ago in his death and resurrection. So of course God connects us to Jesus’ cross and resurrection through the sacraments. He does this not by making a past event come into the present somehow or collapsing the distinction between past and present (what would that even mean?) but rather by establishing a personal, living union between Christ and his people in and through the sacraments in the present. This living union with Christ in the present connects us to the past via the person of Christ, who was crucified and rose again 2000 years ago and is here now in the present to offer and apply to us all the benefits and blessings that he accomplished for us in those past actions. I hope that’s clearer. I understand and fully affirm what the “past made present” language is trying to say, so this isn’t really a disagreement with the doctrinal substance of the matter. Rather, I’m only asking how best to articulate that substance. I’ve probably said too much already.

I think you make some very good points, and I am inclined to agree with you. Our union with the incarnate, risen Lord–which union is effected by the Spirit by means of Word and Sacrament–carries with it the *efficacy* of His once for all sacrifice, but does not necessarily *re-present* that sacrifice.

Nevertheless, while I don’t see any need to view the Eucharist as making the past present, I understand why some feel that this way of conceiving what transpires in the Sacrament as being helpful and true. And in the end, I don’t think there is as much substantial difference between the two positions as many usually assume there to be. In partaking of the life-giving flesh and blood of the risen Christ we are truly partaking of the benefits of his atoning sacrifice, as His work is inseparable from His person. I think this is something all Christians can and should confess together.

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”

Maybe I’m just very dense, but the participation in Christ as offered through the Sacrament is indeed a real presentation of His death and subsequent resurrection. How in the world can we be buried with Him if it was simply an historical event not made present now? Help me out here, Paul is super confusing otherwise. Yes, it’s His person we’re put into, but a very specific train of events are made ours in the baptismal act.

I think Jonathan is right that we are essentially in agreement about the union we have through the Sacraments. My only real point was that I felt your concern about such language wasn’t really grounded in a demonstrably substantive concern. Maybe you dislike the terms, but I think they have real biblical warrant.